


Taking Care

by orphan_account



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: M/M, i dont feel like putting this in any tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:12:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>history of houka and iori's relationship starting from before hounnoji academy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Care

**Author's Note:**

> some of this was inspired by the recent klk drama cd that came out. you'll understand if you've heard of it

"Please take care of him for me."

Those were the last words Houka had heard before working in the new Hounnoji Academy. He had a somewhat vague idea of what that meant then. He knew who “him” was, but wasn’t exactly sure of the second part of the sentence. Why does he need caring for? Why’s he so special? And why me?

What Houka didn’t know was how long Satsuki and Iori had been friends. Satsuki had known Iori since before grade school - since before Nonon claims to have met her. Iori must have been some sort of comfort blanket - a little brother, a family figure, or someone who seemed to her like more family than she’d already had. For lack of better words, they were really, really close.

At first, Houka had no idea how he could work with him. He never smiled, sported deep bags under his eyes, and seemed a little too distant from the rest of Satsuki’s friends. When introduced to each other, Iori would bow, say that it was nice to meet him, and go about his business once more, all the while not changing the neutral expression on his face. When conversations were struck up, he would avert his eyes to the off-white pages of his sketchbook. Even though he seemed enthusiastic about events concerning the opening of the school and the step-by-step procedure to end Ragyo’s reign, he did not seem to get excited, or show any emotion at all, about anything else.

The opening of the school had changed many of the things Houka thought before. He would often catch Iori working himself to the brink, from the early hours of the morning to the late hours at night, often falling asleep at his desk. Stitching, ordering, sketching, checking…making sure everything was in shape. Even at times where he wasn’t supposed to work with Iori, Houka would “accidentally” end up in the Sewing Club’s room to see how he was doing. 

"I’m supposed to work. I have orders to fulfill and people to please," Iori would later tell him.

Sitting or working in silence with another person in the room bored Houka, even if he considered himself a quiet person. He would find himself talking to Iori about topics the two of them would have in common, such as their pasts, their lives in the school, or what they thought of this or that person. Initially, Iori responded very vaguely, with answers such as “yeah”, “no”, or, more commonly, “I don’t know”. He eventually started to form elongated replies such as “I’m good, how are you?”, and, after a couple of months, started conversations of his own. 

While working, Houka discovered many things about Iori he never would’ve thought. The Sewing Club president lived up to his name; he dreamed of making his own designs a reality as soon as life fibers were wiped off the Earth. The two boys had similar tastes in video games, especially in Pokemon breeding and IV training (Iori’s first shiny was a Cresselia, which he had managed to capture after several tries in his Diamond game). He also did not know of his own parents, and had lived several years without them (something Houka could relate to), residing with his uncle, who was Satsuki’s butler. The two shared lunches, dinners, laughs, and walks to the corner of the Elite Four’s private street on their way home. 

A day several months after they met, Iori had grabbed Houka’s hand and invited him to walk a little farther than the private street, past the two-star, one-star, and no-star platforms, out of Hounnoji, and to a bus stop.

"Where are we going?"

"You’ll see."

After a fairly short bus ride and two more blocks down, the two came across a great golden gate. An intercom was implanted on one of the marble walls that held it. Across from it, the letters “KIRYUIN” were engraved on a metal plate in Japanese, English, Chinese, French, and some other languages Houka wasn’t able to decipher. 

"Are you sure that we can-"

"It’s fine."

"Won’t Satsuki-"

"You’re here to see me, not her."

"We-"

As if he had not heard Houka attempt to speak, Iori once again grabbed his friend’s hand and led him through a significantly smaller pair of marble-and-gold gates and onto a stepstone passage by the side of the mansion. Houka took as much time as he could to savor the sight of the trimmed shrubbery, flamboyant flowers, and intricately carved statues, the colors blinding his already impaired eyes.  _Ragyo must be a big fan of rainbows. No surprise there,_  Houka thought to himself. They had eventually reached the back of the mansion, which was facing some sort of body of water. They passed through a door, some stairs, greetings to Iori from several workstaff, and gawks at Houka from younger maids until Iori let go of his friend’s hand and opened a two-door entrance into a warm colored living room.

"My house."

The boys took a moment to take off their shoes before Houka got a look around. The living room was like a hotel room in terms of the quantity and quality of the furniture present, not counting the PS4 connected to the TV. A matching set of couches and chairs seemed to match the wooden bookshelves, loaded with titles that Iori would have probably not cared to read. Houka invited himself onto a velvet red armchair.

"Hmmmm."

"What?"

"I see what you did." Houka sprawled his hands on the armrests and tisked. "You wanted to invite me over, but you were too embarrassed to ask me straight out. And that’s what this trip was all about."

A small amount of pink flush came to Iori’s cheeks. He crossed his arms and turned away, telling Houka that his guess was on the dot. “Shut up.”

"Whatever. I won’t think any less of you for it. I understand the feeling."

"…."

After a couple of moments of silence, Iori rushed to his room and came back without his uniform - in the same black turtleneck he was wearing before and a pair of gym shorts. He offered to take Houka’s coat, but Houka declined.

The two sat around for quite a while. They made themselves food, battled their Pokemon (Why would Houka leave his house without his DS?), and even just sat around and talked. It wasn’t until two hours or so that Iori finally let Houka enter his room.

"Sorry for the mess."

Iori’s room looked like a hotel room too - a very, very cluttered hotel room. Fabric and paper lay on the ground, posters and cut outs from magazines filled the walls, and a digital sewing machine lay covered in even more fabric and thread. Houka hadn’t realized this until later, but the alarm clock/stereo near Iori’s bed was softly playing Bjork’s “Cocoon” on repeat. 

"Yeah…it’s ok."

Iori sat himself on his bed and invited his friend to join him. Houka kindly obliged, and then faced his friend.

"So…what do you wanna do in here?"

Iori sat in silence. “I dunno. I just feel like sitting for a while now.”

"Ok….."

And so they sat; Houka catching glimpses of Iori closing his eyes and smiling every once in a while.

“ _Please take care of him for me_.”

Iori had dragged Houka to his house to hang out every other week or day since then; Houka had assumed that this was whenever Iori was able to make time, being the hard worker that he is. They would play video games, eat, and talk, as they did the first time. But, many times, Iori would just ask Houka to sit with him in silence. Houka would adhere to this at first, but after a while, he began to get more and more curious. He finally asked Iori of the purpose of this.

"Its nice…I guess. I dunno."

"What’s nice?"

"Sitting with someone in the same room is nice. Someone you don’t live with. Someone who won’t talk to you about work or tease you or anything."

"Don’t you talk to Satsuki a lot?"

"Yeah, but I see her every day and-"

"You practically see me every day too."

This seemed to throw Iori off a little bit. He tightened his grip on his legs, which he was hugging. 

"I just like sitting here with you."

Houka didn’t know if he really knew what he was saying then, or he had ever noticed the connotation behind grabbing his hand, among other things. But he didn’t exactly mind.

—

Providing clothes for every person in the universe was obviously not an easy task. Iori was supposed to work together with what was left of REVOCS, among other clothes manufacturing companies, to harvest materials. Even though he didn’t like having help, he complied with the conditions, and managed to pull through. It was only a matter of days when Houka and his friends had been fully clothed and back home. 

That’s when Satsuki pulled Houka over to talk to him.

"Thank you."

"For what are you thankful, Lady Satsuki?"

"For taking care of Iori."

Houka twiddled his thumbs. “I don’t exactly think I “cared” for him at all, Lady Satsuki. He’s well able to fend for himself.”

"…That’s not what I meant."

Satsuki began to slowly pace around the room. “I think you know enough about the two of us for me to tell you this. You know that Iori and I have known each other since childhood. Well…” She stood still for a moment. “After I discovered the truth of the disappearance of my father, Soroi brought over his then-orphaned nephew, Iori, in order for me to rehabilitate.”

Houka wanted to ask what she meant by “then-orphaned”, but now was not the time.

"Since then, he’d always been very dependent on me. Of course, I love him a lot, like a brother, but I’d also wanted him to become more liberated, or to "do his own thing", so to speak. Wanting to create his own fashion line was a start, of course, but he saw it as nothing more of a dream.

"Seeing your application for the school, your work in your field, and your behavior to the rest of the Devas, among other things, decided for me that you would be a wonderful friend to him. Someone who could bring him out of his shell. I know that you are supposed to complete your own puzzle and not have anybody give you their pieces, of course. I just wanted to find someone for him who shared common interests and personality traits. You just…seemed to have gotten closer than I had intended.

"Since the day Hounnoji Academy opened, Iori would talk to me about you without me asking any questions. At first it was telling me that you were extremely intelligent and an intensive worker. He then told me that you, too, liked that children’s fighting animals game he loved so much. He said it was calming to talk to you, and was afraid that you did not reciprocate this feeling."

"Of course I reciprocate the feeling. I very much enjoy talking to him."

"I know you do. He just…." Satsuki slightly covered her mouth with her hands. "Hefeelsforyou. Thank you for making friends with him. He’s seemed a lot more elated than he usually is."

"You’re welcome, Lady Satsuki."

Satsuki gave Houka a very, very unexpected hug, which he returned, after which Satsuki quickly left. Houka slowly dragged along after her. He could hear Nonon screaming from the distance, “What was that about, Doggie?” He didn’t care to respond, because there was only one thing on his mind right now. He didn’t know if Satsuki intended for him to hear the last part of that lecture, but what he did know was that he felt the same.

It was about 3 a.m. when Houka came to the Sewing Club room. Iori was still awake, naturally, looking over packages of clothing that were being shipped off somewhere. Houka reluctantly came over and stood next to him.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Satsuki talked to me today…."

"I know."

Houka’s eyes widened. “You know?”

"I’ve known Satsuki the longest. I know how she thinks."

"You…."

Another unexpected hug came to Houka again, this time from Iori, which Houka was more than happy to return.

"I love you, Houka. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier."

Houka kissed the top of Iori’s head in response, but didn’t say anything.


End file.
